1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to systems for manufacturing noodle casings that are used for jiao-zis, won-tons, spring rolls and the like.
2. Description of the Related Art
In general, in order to manufacture noodle casings, water that contains additives (such as salt and oil) is added to and mixed with wheat flour or the like. The mixture is then stirred to form noodle dough. The dough is rolled until a noodle sheet having a predetermined thickness is obtained. The noodle sheet is placed on a conveyer and is folded (in a suitable time and a suitable length). The folded noodle sheet is then fed to a punching device having a punching die. The punching die includes a plurality of punching die parts each having a predetermined configuration corresponding to noodle casings to be obtained, so that a plurality of noodle casings can be formed by the punching die parts. The folded and punched noodle casings are then separated from the remaining portion of the folded noodle sheet. The noodle casings are thereafter transferred to a packaging machine, while the remaining portion is transferred to a recovering machine.
Conventionally, in order to separate the noodle casings from the remaining portion of the noodle sheet, a vertically movable conveyer is disposed below the punching die so as to vertically oppose to the punching die. After the noodle casings have been formed by punching the folded noodle sheet, the conveyer moves downward, so that the noodle casings moves downward together with the conveyer, while the remaining portion of the folded noodle sheet is held to be positioned at a transferring level. After the noodle casings have been moved downward, the remaining noodle sheet is transferred to the recovering machine. On the other hand, the noodle casings are transferred to the packaging machine by the conveyer. This conventional technique is disclosed, for example, in Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2002-330692.
However, in the conventional technique, the conveyer is moved downward together with the noodle casings after the noodle casings have been formed by the punching machine and the remaining portion of the folded noodle sheet is held in the transfer level. Therefore, a difficult adjustment is required between the timing of the vertical movement of the transfer conveyer and the timing of the punching operation by the punching die. Therefore, it is difficult to smoothly sequentially perform the operations for punching the folded noodle sheet to form the noodle casings, separating the noodle casings from the remaining portion of the folded noodle sheet, and transferring the noodle casings and the remaining portion to the next steps independently of each other.